EDITED HANSARD: Monday, January 25, 2016
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS: Violence Against Women
Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, Conservative):
Mr. Speaker, violence against women continues to be a fact of life in Canada. Carol Culleton, Nathalie Warmerdam, and Anastasia Kuzyk were killed on September 22, 2015. They were murdered by someone known to each of them. On average in Canada, one woman is killed by her intimate partner every five days.
The man arrested and accused of their murders had a long criminal history, including charges involving two of the three women. Happening in the middle of a recent federal election, their violent deaths barely caused a ripple in the national media, leaving the families and friends in the rural Ontario community where these women lived to grieve in silence.
I invite the Minister of Justice to spend some time listening to the families of these murdered women. Changing our laws to blame the victim is just plain wrong. Let us not allow Carol, Nathalie, Anastasia, and all the other women who have been murdered by their intimate partners to have died in vain.
